Girls Best Friend,Hamilton Creek, 11 miles 1hr 20 min

Today I am taking an adventure at a place that has been considered “home” since I started to ride mountain bikes. I started riding the trails at Hamilton Creek when I was in junior high school. My basket ball coach thought I need to lose weight so “the bull ,as I was called back then, would be a little quicker on her toes…. So he talked me into riding for exercise thus-this is when the monster was created. Just for information sake, I did not end up losing any weight..I just ate more. Anyway, now 14 years later I have returned to live very close to the trail where it all began…….

As I ride my mountain bike, I am by myself; no other person around. However I am not alone. I actually feel like I have all that I will ever need in life. I have my bike, a smile, and cleo running in front of me. She is been there with me, riding, cross county skiing, rock climbing, running, swimming, kayaking, riding in the car, playing ball in the yard, and giving me kisses when I did not want them. I think back when snickers, her mother would have been with us. Going for a ride, always slower and behind…but there with us. Today I left snickers to sit in the Air Conditioning, because a 14-year-old dog would not make the 11-mile mountain bike ride, in the summer, in the south. I begin to think about my girls and how they have always been with me.

Snickers was originally my little brother’s dog. We got her when I was 15. A little short for an “American” Jack Russel, I assure you she is the master mouse catcher that has ever claimed the name of the breed. I went from being snicker’s sister to her momma when I was 21. She came to live with me in my apartment in Bowling Green Kentucky. It seemed that she tried to beat up my brother’s 1 year old pit bull…and the pit bull won. So this is how the many years of friendship and vet bills came to pass. I think we are a lot alike, me and snickers. She is a funny little dog that likes to play and make you happy. She is an emotional creature, with a heart of gold, very intune with people’s feelings. We both make funny little faces and interesting sound effects… and we both love chocolate. Like me, she takes up too much space in the bed, due to her pattern of sleeping horizontal with her little paws stretched out. Sometime we both get too excited and yet can both relax to the point where we can sleep pretty much anywhere. I have a backpack that is actually a front pack that I can carry her in. This has come in handy during our roller blading and cross-country ski trips. After 3 miles or so she gets a little tired and asks to be picked up for maybe a 15 minute break . I slam her in and off we go until she gets squirmy…put her down again and she is good to go for a few more miles until the next rest break. As you can imagine we get lots of triple takes.

Cleo, a eight year old Jack Russel, has been on many adventures. The dog with 9 lives has jumped out the car window while driving ( because she had to go pee) she has been hit my a car, she electrocuted herself by chewing on a lamp cord, her foot has been slammed in the trunk door and, she has fallen down a 15 foot ravine while we were hiking and well… you can say she has had many other incidents that have resulted in many more vet bills. She is “ball crazy”, loves to swim, likes to sleep under the blankets, needs attention, is jealous of her mother, like to have her belly scratched, loves to drink the bath tub water, thinks she is a big dog, and is an absolute beauty with those droppy brown puppy-dog eyes.
Both can sense when I am sad.. they come and comfort me and kiss me on the hand. Snickers will scratch at my leg so I would but her in my lap. They have been there when I was all alone. When I was 1200 miles from my family and when my ex-husband left- left to go live somewhere else, I was alone in our big house. I would be scared and put the girls in the bed with me. With them I did not feel alone. I had family with me. It broke my heart to but them on the airplane last October to go live with me family in Tennessee. I was afraid that my ex-husband would insist on taking one of them, a right he had, but I knew I could never separate a mother and daughter. So now I have my girls back, we are on a new adventure. Me and the girls will have a good time and I will have them with me everywhere possible.